Yesterday something significant happened in all the major sports. Well, maybe not women’s basketball, but since they announced an NCAA tourney bid the day before, we can cut Coach Staley and her charges some slack.

First the big news. As in BIG NEWS. After only 18 months of needing to do it, AD Eric Hyman quickly moved to relieve MBB Coach Darrin Horn of his duties. In listening to the press conference yesterday, I was struck by how reasonable and deliberate the AD sounded, which must mean I fell asleep and dreamed the whole thing, or its time to up my welbutrin script. Again.

The final TRC photo of Darrin Horn

One thing Hyman made clear was that money would not be a problem in the search for a replacement candidate. Despite hinting that the Horn hire was necessitated by a much weaker financial situation four years ago, the AD stressed repeatedly that the Gamecock front office was now willing to pay whatever “the market” required to hire a top flight coach. [If you will recall, “the market” is a rough equivalent of what it took to “put a smile” on Cecil Newton’s face during the sale of his son to the Auburn Tigers. But I digress. . . ] At the risk of interrupting my longstanding Anti-Hyman meme in this space, I think we can relax and trust our resident Tarheel to get it right this time. Maybe. /pops another welbutrin tablet.

As if this wasn’t enough, yesterday was also the first day of Spring Practi-football, football, FOOOTBAAALLLLLLL!!!- and as is usually the case, the news came fast and furious: Jadeveon Clowney isn’t going to class, Kenny Miles isn’t NOT going to practice, and Marcus Lattimore can now run in a straight line. Oh, and Devonte Holloman is playing safetyspursafetyspursafety spur again, and that allows Demario Jeffrey to slide over to willspurwillspurwillspur will, his more natural position (despite all the coaching changes, its nice to know that nothing has really changed).

Other mini bombshells, such as Corey Robinson to DLOLbuffetDL OL and Qua Gilchrist to fullback, deserve a mention, if for no other reason than to mention those two cats for the first time in the history of TRC. Deangelo Smith, last years Taqiy Muhammed Award winner, (awarded by TRC staff to the most dominant performer in a scrimmage environment) was, at least for now, named first team wideout.

At the Quarterback position, this spring promises to look exactly like the last five – no Stephen Garcia.

In news of a more mundane nature, the baseball team defeated Charleston Southern 5-2, and the Softball squad dropped both sides of a double header to the Bizzaro Dawgs.